Fitting Pineapple (Ananas comosus L.) with Rainfed Rice in the Cropping Sequence in Eastern India

Abstract

In eastern India, the majority of areas under rainfed ecosystem are left fallow after kharif rice mainly due to lack of availability of irrigation water. Under this situation, pineapple is a suitable crop due to its adaptation system of crassulacean acid metabolism for photosynthetic carbon fixation. Pineapple is a long-duration crop (16–18 months) with irregular flowering behaviour. Hence, the present study was undertaken to study the feasibility of growing pineapple crop after harvest of kharif rice in a yearly sequence at the Research Farm of ICAR-Indian Institute of Water Management, Mendhasal, Khurda (Odisha), for two consecutive years (2009–2010 and 2010–2011). Ethephon hormone was applied at 10-month stage of crop to induce uniform and early flowering. In addition to this general treatment, spray of planofix at 50 mg l−1 (after 15 days of ethephon application at 20 mg l−1) resulted in the maximum flowering (81.2%). Similarly, 79.9% flowering was recorded when the plants were grown under shade. Also, spray of planofix resulted in the highest fruit yield (16.9 t ha−1) of pineapple due to increased fruit size. Fruit quality in terms of total soluble solids (14.85%) and vitamin C (150.18 mg kg−1) content was improved, and fruit acidity (0.58%) was decreased with spray of planofix. Therefore, pineapple can be grown in rice-based cropping system after harvest of kharif rice with suitable hormonal treatment, which will bring down the duration of pineapple crop to about 14 months (8 months in nursery and 6 months in main field).